WATCHMEN’s Dangling Blue…
by E. Christopher Clark | Thursday, March 5, 2009
The reviews for Watchmen keep pouring in, and, unfortunately, not all of them are positive. Massawyrm from Ain’t It Cool News calls the film, “the cinematic equivalent of a Penguin Blowjob, delivering the goods for a solid two and a half hours before overdrafting every last bit of goodwill it has earned in the last fifteen.” One of the high points for him: the performance of Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. Haley was recently interviewed by Newsarama and it’s definitely worth checking out if you want to get the sour taste of the AICN review out of your mouth (and the taste of penguin, for that matter).
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Comments
E. Christopher Clark says:
To be fair, I have read plenty of positive reviews. I think is just going to be one of those movies that splits the Internet in half.
Jeremy Couturier says:
As a serious fan of comics as an artform, I think people are really missing the boat on Watchmen and the comic book movie phenom in general. If you have read Eisner’s or McCloud’s series of books, (and if you haven’t you should….right now!) you must understand comic books and movies are not the same thing.
Sequential art is an artform that has some similiar elements to cinema, but really they are distant cousins in many ways. In comics there are many things suggested that the reader must fill in the gaps, and in doing so comics are closer to literature than they are to cinema. Comics have static images and text trying their best to combine forces to tell a compelling narrative. This is not saying comics are literature either, they are not. Comics are comics.Books are books and cinema is cinema. So….
The Watchmen movie cannot try to replicate what the mini-series (not graphic novel!!!) suggested, it really is far too dense and different experience on paper. What Syder has done is too try to at least get across as best as he can the major themes and style of the source material, and yes he had to compromise because really most comics don’t work well on screen once taken out of context of the sequential art form. (Hellboy,th Spirit,the Punisher, and on and on) So this movie is about as good as you could possibly expect…seriously.
Look at the original series, about a bunch of no-name superheroes involved in a murder-mystery set in an alternate 80s universe. Moore and Gibbons did a brilliant job, and deserve all the credit in the world. Syder does too for trying the best to translate this to the screen, emphasis on translate, without watering it down and using big name stars (Kevin Costner wtf!) The Watchmen should have been a tv miniseries. It makes much more sense doesn’t it? So don’t anyone groan about the movie based on the Citizen Kane of comics not living up to the hype and enjoy the film. It’s a FILM. The mini-series will always be the same as it was, and I can imagine Alan Moore at some point,after a pint or two, looking back and muttering “Not bad kid,nice try…nice try…”
Jeremy Couturier says:
umm yes that was ranty btw I am seeing the movie and looking forward to Jackie Earle as Rorschach big time…and superb casting choice!
RoboYuji says:
Roger Ebert thought it was cool and plans to see it again, and I like Roger Ebert generally, so I’m not worried.
I always takes reviews by Nerds on the Internet with a grain of salt, since they have a habit of fixating on one issue and deciding that it “ruins the whole thing forever”.
E. Christopher Clark says:
Interesting conversation going on. Don’t want to interrupt, except to link up a new review (WATCHMEN is “a tale of two movies” according to it’s headline) and an interview with Rich Johnston about his forthcoming send-up of the comics industry, Watchmensch.
Alrighty now. Carry on. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…
E. Christopher Clark says:
Okay, since I disrupted the flow of things, I think it’s my job to get the conversation going again.
@Jeremy - Very interesting and, I think, accurate points about the differences between comics and films. I think those are some of the reasons why I, as a fiction writer, have always had more interest in writing a comic than in writing a film—I love the idea of collaborative media. With books, with comics, and even with theater, which I was once a big fan of, there is a certain element of audience/reader interaction that you never get with film.
Anyway, which Eisner or McCloud books would you suggest picking up first?
@Yuji - I’m with you on generally trusting Ebert’s opinion. Of course, since we’re not allowed to spend money in our house right now on anything but the essentials, I won’t get to see the movie anyway. But Ebert’s opinion definitely holds more sway over me than the opinions of dudes at AICN.
RoboYuji says:
Apparently he’s already gone to see it a second time in IMAX, and wrote a second article/review for it. He liked it even more the second time around, I hear.
E. Christopher Clark says:
I loved this quote from the end of his first review, which referenced his desire to see it again:
“The film is rich enough to be seen more than once. I plan to see it again, this time on IMAX, and will have more to say about it. I’m not sure I understood all the nuances and implications, but I am sure I had a powerful experience. It’s not as entertaining as “The Dark Knight,” but like the “Matrix” films, LOTR and “The Dark Knight,” it’s going to inspire fevered analysis. I don’t want to see it twice for that reason, however, but mostly just to have the experience again.”
Jeremy Couturier says:
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud and Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner. Being the educated literary type, unlike myself, you will greatly appreciate McCloud’s take of the artform and it’s history.All his books are great. I am by and large an old school comics guy, so Eisner’s book is like Da Vinci inviting you over to his studio and letting you peak over his shoulder.
I tend to agree with Ebert quite a bit, and I think his review is probably dead on.
E. Christopher Clark says:
Thanks for the tip on McCloud, Jeremy (both here and at the NHMM meeting this morning). I would definitely love to take a peek over Da Vinci’s shoulder, so I’ll definitely be checking it out.
Shawn says:
Mmmm…this is what I feared.